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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27340687">blue as a northern sky</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoCarthage/pseuds/JoCarthage'>JoCarthage</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Long distances and close calls (2020 phone banking accountability fic series) [13]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Lost Decade, M/M, lightly critical of Max</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 00:27:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,800</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27340687</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoCarthage/pseuds/JoCarthage</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael waits for Alex's flight to arrive at Idaho Falls Regional Airport and thinks about why he's there.<br/>--<br/>This is a fic series where, after each day of phone banking for the democratic ticket in the US's 2020 presidential election, I will write a fic that's 10x the number of calls I made. So if I make 14 calls, I write and post a 140 word fic. If I made 72 calls, 720 words. If you'd like to start phone banking, you can sign-up for a good, comprehensive training here: https://demvolctr.org. We're doing a big GOTV (get out the vote) push this weekend if you're around!</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Michael Guerin/Alex Manes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Long distances and close calls (2020 phone banking accountability fic series) [13]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1970539</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>72</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I called 31 people in Florida and 12 more in Michigan today, for a total of 1254 calls total. I thought I'd finished this series after my 1001st call, but it turns out phone banking was holding back the tide of election worrying, so after taking 2 days to handle my other volunteer commitments, I am back at it.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Michael tipped his head all the way back against the bed of his truck, taking in the long, arcing contrails overhead where he was parked outside of the chainlink fence surrounding the Idaho Falls Regional Airport. Every few minutes there was the roar of a jet engine broke the quiet mountain air as it repositioned itself on the tarmac around the squat one-story airport. It had been a 20 hour drive north from Roswell, warm in the July air without AC, but still beautiful. </p><p>Alex had been traveling for 20 hours too, crossing oceans, connecting through Dulles in Virginia and heading north for his new posting at Mountain Home AFB. They'd snuck in a quick call in the airport, but things had been busy, chaotic, and he'd nearly missed his flight.</p><p>Michael had gotten here in plenty of time. By rights, Alex should be just at the Wyoming border, beginning his descent. The next plane he heard would have him on it.</p><p>Michael had a week's worth of clothes, food, birthday presents, letters from Alex's friends, along with camping gear.</p><p>They were going to spend the week at Craters of the Moon National Monument, just the two of them.</p><p>They'd spent months looking at pictures of 1000 sq miles of volcanic rock, packed with lava tubes for spelunking, volcanos they could climb.</p><p>Michael wondered what all that black rock looked like from the sky: like Rosa's spilled paints, like a splash of dried blood on a cave wall?</p><p>Michael closed his eyes. He'd wanted to, oh, a dozen times, tell Alex the truth. Not just about him and where he was from, but about that night. The girls. He wanted at least one person to know the whole truth and not hate him for it. He didn't quite get how Max squared it, treating him like a murderer when he knew better. He understood Isobel's coldness, understood how cautious she was. He got that; he could take it. That's what he'd signed up for that night.</p><p>But Max <em>knew</em>, dammit. He <em>knew</em> what he'd given up for Isobel. And yet, he'd somehow simplified his memory until Michael was somehow the bad guy, the fuck-up.</p><p>But Alex didn't treat him that way. Alex treated him like a good guy, a guy who stood up for his family, who did what he could with the cards he'd been dealt. (Who touched him like he was precious).</p><p>The sound of an engine caught his ear. He searched the sky, and <em>there</em>, there it was, coming out of the eastern sky:</p><p>Alex's flight home.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Top quote from today's phone banking:<br/>- Mercedes: "Never have I lived through such disrespect of my nation. Never has my nation been through such chaos." (She was a little disconnected from reality, but I got the impression she blamed President Trump for how disrespected she felt the US was)<br/>- Not Tawanna: "It was my first time ever to vote!"</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I called 71 people in Pennsylvania and 66 more in North Carolina today, for a total of 1391 calls total. Tomorrow is the last day to make GOTV calls, so if you'd like to start phone banking, you can sign-up for a good, comprehensive training here: https://demvolctr.org. I'm working tech support pretty much the whole day.<br/>--<br/>mander3_swish asked for the camping trip, so here's the camping trip!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><strong>Alex</strong>: I see you.</p><p>Michael looked up from his phone, scanning the crowd. He wasn't sure if, everything else being equal, they would be the kind of men to run tearfully into each other's arms in the parking lot of a regional airport. If they weren't so near a military base, if they weren't in rural Idaho, he didn't know if he'd really want to wrap himself around Alex and let his face go as soft as his heart felt seeing him shrugging that massive backpack on his shoulders and weaving through the crowd. He was pretty sure Alex preferred to save that softness just for the two of them, just for the quiet place they built between them whenever they were alone together.</p><p>Michael lounged against his tailgate as Alex covered the last few feet between them, hand on his elbow as he slung his backpack off his shoulders. Michael half-crawled into the truck bed to strap it down and thought he heard Alex's breath hitch from the way his shirt rode up his side at the motion. But that could have been the mountain winds.</p><p>"Ready to go?" Alex asked, and <em>God</em>, Michael had missed the sound of his voice, all those resonances and quavers their cell phones and Skype connections stripped out and stripped down.</p><p>"Guerin," Alex said, and Michael realized he'd been staring. "Earth to Guerin, do you copy?"</p><p>"Copy, Private," Michael said, voice just below the roar of the F-150 that had just parked behind them. "Let's get on the road."</p><p>He flipped the tailgate shut, hand just brushing the front of Alex's t-shirt and <em>yes</em>, there it was, that intake of breath. He glanced up to see Alex's eyes, shimmering with heat and tucked a smirk into his cheek. It was good to know he wasn't the only one left wanting by Alex's deployment.</p><p>He slipped around to the driver's side door, letting Alex get the passenger door. He had the truck rumbling to life before Alex put his seatbelt on and it was Alex's hand on his thigh as they pulled out onto the highway.</p><p>--</p><p>The cabins were small, spaced pretty far apart, mostly made private by the white noise of the relentless high desert winds and the thick scrubby pines. As Alex and Michael unloaded the truck in a steady rhythm they practiced every time they had more than a few days together, Michael wondered what it would be like to see Alex tuck-in sheets around something other than a Park Service-issued bunk bed; wondered when he's see him strip off his shirt, roll his shoulders against the cool air, golden in the half-afternoon sun in a space that was more permanently theirs. Michael shuttered the one small window by the door and then approached, bare feet soft on the rough slats. He spread his palm across the curl of muscle around Alex's side, just above his ribs. He stretched his fingers into each lull and valley, reacquainting himself with the warmth and heat of him as Alex breathed into the touch.</p><p>Alex turned in his arms, draping his wrists over Michael's shoulders.</p><p>"See something you like?"</p><p>Michael looked at him, drifting a fingertip up, tracing the extra lines of crows feet, the new scar on his forehead, a thin strand of white hair. He didn't slide his eyes down his body, didn't make it lewd. He gave Alex all the softness he could, in moments like these, trying to fill a long dry well in both of them.</p><p>"I always like you, Alex," he murmured. "You know that."</p><p>Alex hitched a breath, looking away, jaw clenching, like he was steeling himself.</p><p>"We should eat," he said, and Michael let him go. It went like this, sometimes. He'd go too fast, say too many words, and Alex would just wind himself tighter and tighter.</p><p>Alex had a 7-item checklist for camping, written in his Dad's handwriting, bellowed into his heart by that hateful menace. Unpack, make-up the site, eat, hike, toast marshmallows, sleep, rest. Sometimes, if Michael was very lucky, he could get Alex to rest before step 7, to wait to make-up the cabin until they'd had a few minutes in each other's arms; it didn't look like today would be that day.</p><p>"Alright, PB&amp;J work for you?"</p><p>Alex nodded, heading for the cooler beneath the window, Michael following, pulling out supplies as Alex checked the deadbolt to the cabin. They sat on the floor with the filtered sunlight around them, Michael setting out the squares of sourdough he'd bought before leaving Roswell, Alex smearing them with peanut butter and strawberry jam, careful of the edges.</p><p>Michael thought about spilling the jam on Alex's chest, so he'd have an excuse to lick it off, but Alex still had a tightness around his eyes, that was as clear a sign as any he needed time to settle down, to settle in.</p><p>"When you were up there," Michael asked, voice quiet, "did you see the volcanic fields?"</p><p>"Hmm?" Alex asked, voice muffled around a massive bite of his sandwich.</p><p class="p1">"It looked like you came in straight over Wyoming, but I didn't know if you'd spiraled first, seen Craters of the Moon from the sky."</p><p class="p1">"I could see it a little, just as we were making the final approach, this black slash of ground."</p><p class="p1">"I figured it'd look different from above." On the drive in, the rocks around them had sometimes absorbed the sun like crushed velvet, sometimes reflected it in shimmering turquoises and blues and reds. "You know NASA sent the astronauts here to train, before the US went to the Moon, when they'd thought her pockmarks were from volcanos and not comets?"</p><p class="p1">"I didn't know that," Alex said. He paused, then: "Have you ever been on a plane?"</p><p class="p1">Michael shook his head, curls tickling his ears: "Not that I remember. Before, maybe. But," he shrugged.</p><p class="p1">Alex took the moment to grace his hand down Michael's shoulder, tangling his fingers around his left hand, thumb working across the scars there, like he always did, like he was trying to remind himself why they stayed quiet, went slow, locked the doors.</p><p class="p1">"Maybe," he started, "Maybe after this tour's up, we can. You know. Go someplace. Together."</p><p class="p1">Michael felt his eyes get big. This was way ahead of the checklist for Alex to hint, to acknowledge there was an <em>after</em>, a <em>we</em>. </p><p class="p1">"Yeah?" He asked, voice as even as he could make it. "Where'd you want to go?"</p><p class="p1">Alex leaned back, setting aside his last sandwich onto the cooler, bracing his arms behind him, palms flat on the rough floor. "Oh, I don't know," he said, tilting his head lazily. "San Francisco, Seattle, New York during Pride, someplace we can just be for a bit."</p><p class="p1">"Yeah?" Michael said, leaning forward, hand on the floor by Alex's fatigue-clad hip, filling the space as surely as if Alex had tugged him in by the heartstrings. "You want to cover yourself in rainbows, Alex? Got some clubs all picked out?"</p><p class="p1">"Who says I don't?" Alex drawled, and Michael blinked. Just when he thought he had Alex's schedule figured out, he was wrong. Then -- there it was. The familiar flash of worry: "Unless that's not your thing?"</p><p class="p1">Michael rolled forward onto his knees, close enough to hear him breathing. "You're my thing, Alex. Being with you, that's my thing."</p><p class="p1">Alex's voice was hoarse: "Just us, nobody else." He reached up, tracing the back of his hand up Michael's arm, across the flexing muscle of his shoulder as Michael held himself over Alex's body, waiting, waiting, always waiting for a sign he was wanted. Alex cupped the back of his neck, drawing him down, Michael kneeing closer between his folded legs.</p><p class="p1">"You'd like that, would you?" Michael managed. "Having me all to yourself?"</p><p class="p1">Alex nodded, small and hard and clear as daylight. "I'd like that. A lot. I can see it." And then Michael saw -- it was Alex, finally; not the airman, not the well-trained son. <em>His</em> Alex.</p><p class="p1">Michael felt a smile begin to curl across his mouth. "I see you."</p><p class="p1">Then he closed the distance between their mouths, and he could almost feel Alex's body relax into <em>home</em>.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>There are no cabins for rent at the monument that I know of, but I have hiked all around there and it is quite awesome. Not that these two clowns see the outside of the cabin.<br/>--<br/>Top quote from today's phone banking:<br/>- Gerald (NC): “You’ve called a house full of Republicans and we all voted straight Democrat. We’re so sick to death of Republicans. Anyone you’re calling about, we voted for.”</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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